


If Not Now

by clarias



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: F/F, Jessika is a nerd, Jessika thinks she has game, Rey is also a nerd, background stormpilot, for the purposes of this fic Rey isn't Luke's long lost daughter, gays in space: space gays
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-04
Updated: 2016-03-02
Packaged: 2018-05-17 20:53:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5884816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clarias/pseuds/clarias
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“The Millennium Falcon left yesterday,” Poe remarks, stirring a disgusting amount of sugar into his caf.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>“Oh,” Jessika says, aiming for casual. “I guess she went. Do you know when she might be back?”</i>
</p><p>
  <i>He just shrugs and Jessika slumps. Temmin puts an arm around her shoulders and sighs deeply.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>“Cheer up Jess, there’s other fish in the sea. Quite literally. I hear there’s a Mon Calamari down in maintenance you haven’t struck out with yet.”</i>
</p><p>Rey leaves the Resistance base without looking back but only weeks into her Jedi training she's drawn back by a vision of Finn and Poe crashing over a mysterious and inhospitable moon, teaming up with fellow pilot Jessika to find them and bring them home. Along the way there'll be falling in love, questionable Jedi ethics and bad pick up lines.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

Jessika definitely doesn't wince as the medic applies the filigree staples to the gash in her leg. Her knuckles whiten on the edge of the examination table and she jiggles her uninjured leg until the medic – Kalpurnia? Or is it Kalonia? – gives her a stern look.

"You're lucky," she says, her voice damnably calm and soothing. "The shrapnel missed your femoral artery. You'll be back in the cockpit in no time."   


Jess snorts. She'd never thought a rebellion would be this damn careful; once, back on Dandoran when she'd still been earning credits flying swoops, she'd blown a stabiliser and near torn off her arm. The next day she'd got right back in, patched up and braced, and won. This little nick was nothing. 

"Ow!" she cries out as the medic slathers on some bacta and wraps the wound up.   


Poe had seen the gash on her suit and insisted she go straight to med bay. You didn't just ignore the squad leader's orders so she'd waited while all the urgent cases were dealt with before someone could come jab at her sore leg and lecture her. It wasn't that she was squeamish – quite the opposite really – she just hated being fussed over.   


There were a hundred other things she could be doing right now: her X-Wing was damaged much worse than she was and she liked to help the ground crew. It always paid to know your ship and it paid double to keep the grease monkeys on your side. As soon as she was let go she'd head down to the hangar and…   


"There," Kalpurnia/Kalonia interrupts her thoughts. "Make sure that you rest for the next few days. There's still nothing better for recovery. Take these tonight, they'll help you sleep, and come back if it gets swollen or red. Immediately this time," she adds, giving Jess a sharp look.   


She gives a jaunty salute and takes the blister pack of sleeping pills. "Sure thing, doc."    


As soon as the medic pulls back the curtains and moves onto the next patient Jessika knots the sleeves of her flight suit around her waist and fires the pills down the garbage chute.    


With the bacta spreading a nice, numb feeling across her thigh her leg isn't too sore to walk on so she barely limps as she makes her way towards the exit. She definitely doesn't want to spend any more time than necessary here but she can't help but pause when she hears the general's voice.    


Leia Organa has an unexplainable magnetism; Jessika can remember every single speech she's given her. The others like to tease her about her crush but it's not that - it's more of a hero worship thing. Who could blame her? The legends told about the general were nearly too amazing to be true but it was all borne out by history: she was a spy in the Imperial Senate at fourteen and just about single handedly enabled the destruction of the first Death Star before she turned twenty. Anyone would be in awe.   


That said, Jessika has seen holos of the younger Leia and she absolutely would have had a crush on her; the embarrassing, desperate kind. That would really have given her squad something to tease her about.

So she pauses just for a moment where she can see through the curtains to where the general is standing, her hand resting on a girl's shoulder. She doesn't recognise the girl – unusual for their insular community – and they're both sitting vigil over the ex-stormtrooper, asleep and hooked up to more machines than Jess can count.    


"You should eat something," Leia says, her voice soft. "You must be hungry."   


The girl wipes the grit from her eyes wearily. "Not really," she replies. She looks exhausted but undefeated; Jessika knows instinctively she wouldn't want to mess with her.   


"The med droid says he might not wake up for quite some time," Leia continues. "It won't hurt to leave him for a few hours. I promise he's in safe hands."   


"I don't want him to wake up alone," the girl replies, her voice small.   


"Jessika, fancy seeing you here," someone says behind her and she spins around to see Poe giving her a smile. "And now I suppose you’re on your way to your bunk to rest?"   


She rolls her eyes. "Why does no one trust me?" she asks, grateful he hadn't seen her eavesdropping.   


Just then, the curtain opens and the general steps out. "There you are commander, lieutenant," she adds, nodding to Jessika

She snaps back a quick salute but Poe just goes to the girl.   


"Poe here is going to take over for a while," Leia says, ushering him towards the girl's seat.   


"Finn and me go way back," he reassures her. "I'll call you the moment he wakes up."   


With a last squeeze of the ex-stormtrooper's hand the girl gets up, looking over her shoulder at his sleeping form, and follows Leia out. As she goes Jessika notices one more strange detail: hanging from the girl's waist is a heavy metal cylinder. She's no expert but she knows what that is – a lightsaber.   


Who is this girl?   


She desperately wants to follow them but they've already disappeared in the warren of the base's corridors, probably towards the general's private quarters, and she can't think of a single good reason to interrupt them.    


She glances over at Poe, wondering whether he would have more details, but he's staring intently at the ex-stormtrooper, his customary smile slipped for the moment and genuine worry clouding his face.    


She'll just have to find the girl and ask her herself.   


::   


Rey shrugs on the quilted vest Leia set out for her, wondering how the general knew she was cold in D’Qar’s relatively temperate climate. The general’s quarters are small but cosy and Rey had fallen asleep last night listening to the older woman milling about. It was nice to share space.   


Leia looks up from the stack of holopads she's studying. "You promise you'll have breakfast? And you'll think about what I said?" she asks.   


"I will," Rey agrees, knowing she'll hardly be able to get the thought out of her head. Actually going to find Luke Skywalker... asking him to train her... She's going to need more than a meal to think it over.    


The base is so strange and so busy, the noise and smell of people nearly overwhelming. She’s glad Leia ordered them dinner in her rooms the night before; she's heard more languages than she thought existed in the galaxy in only the short time she’s spent out.

Added to which she can feel the weight of so much life pressing against her new senses, the ones that have just begun to awaken. It swirls around her like an invisible desert, every grain of sand shifting and grating against her.   


The mess buzzes with activity, pilots and ground crew and intelligence officers all crowding the rows of tables. She grabs a tray of food from the cooks, and is taken aback by the enormous pile of food on it. 

After her dinner last night she's not sure she can eat as much again today but her mouth still waters at the sight of the succulent fruit they've given her.   


She surveys the room to find a seat and immediately catches the eye of one of the pilots who waves and gestures her towards their table. She feels awkward but maybe Poe had asked his people to look out for her?   


"Hey," the girl grins as Rey sets down her tray and sits opposite her. "You looked a little lost."   


Rey shrugs, digging into the fruit. The girl is startlingly pretty, her long black hair pulled into a rough ponytail and smudges of oil adorning her face. She's wearing her orange jumpsuit undone over a white tank and the sleeves knotted round her waist.   


"I'm Jessika Pava," she says. "Blue Squadron."   


"Rey," she replies, feeling it sounds incomplete but she hardly has anything else to tack on. She lifts a bowl of soup to her mouth and takes a deep draught to cover her awkwardness.   


Jessika grins though. "Pleased to meet you, Rey." Her eyes flick down to Rey's waist. "That's a pretty special weapon you've got there."   


Rey feels her hand immediately fly to the saber grip, her fingers clutching it possessively.

Jessika leans forward, lowering her voice. "So... are you a Jedi?"    


Rey can hear the excitement humming in the other girl's voice but she doesn't feel in danger. She studies her, tries to reach out with her unpracticed senses but Jessika only seems enthusiastic.   


She shrugs, keeping her eyes fixed on her plate of fruit. Her instinct is to keep herself inconspicuous but she decides to try out the idea, see how it fits her. "Not really, but I might be one. Some day."   


She can feel Jessika grin without looking. "I knew it," she whispers, as if to herself. "That would explain why the general is involved."   


"But I'm not sure if I will," Rey blurts out, the churn of her thoughts overflowing. "Leia said she has the map, finally, and she says I should follow it and get training but – "   


"You'll make a great Jedi," Jessika says, seemingly certain. "Although I never imagined one being so easy on the eyes."   


Rey blushes. "I'm not sure I am – " she begins but the girl interrupts her with a cheeky grin.   


"Pretty or a Jedi?" she asks, her eyes sparkling. Some of the other pilots near their end of the table groan but Rey hesitates, not sure if she's being messed with.    


"Either. I don't know how I did what I did... "   


The girl nods. "We always say 'may the force be with you' when we go out on missions but I know half the pilots don't think it's real. Sometimes, though, when you pull off an impossible shot, or when you just know something's coming before the sensors do..." She shrugs. "I believe it."   


"You're..." Rey searches for the words. What was it Leia had said? "Force sensitive?"   


One of the other pilots, an abednedo, barks with laughter. "Testor? She's as force sensitive as a brain damaged cannok."   


Jessika whacks him lightly on the arm. "I'm not saying I'll be swinging a lightsaber around but sometimes I get hunches, sometimes they're right. It's like a voice in the back of your head, giving you a nudge."   


"Or a bloody big push," Rey agrees, leaning her head on her hands.   


The girl shrugs. "I wouldn't know about that. I just trust my instincts." She tilts her head consideringly. "Right now mine are saying we should go for walk. I can show you a bit of D’Qar maybe take one of the two-man ships up…” she trails off suggestively but one of the other pilots interrupts.

He’s human, with short black hair and a beard. “No you can’t Jess,” he says testily. “Everyone is grounded except for patrols and emergencies.”

“Well I can show you the base,” Jessika continues, undeterred. “I have a private bunk, you know."   


Rey freezes. She's not sure if she understands correctly; propositions on Jakku hadn't exactly been unheard of, but they weren't usually from someone so... attractive. Jessika certainly seems serious but she's not sure if she should, if she wants to –   


Jessika notices her wide eyes and immediately leans back, offering Rey a rueful smile. "Or not, zero pressure offer.”   


"Leave the girl alone, Testor," the abednedo pilot says, rolling his eyes.   


"It's not that I - " Rey babbles out but Jessika waves her protests away.   


"Seriously, it's no big deal." She finishes mopping up the last of her meal and pockets a tube of field rations. "It was good to meet you, Rey. May the force be with you."   


"You too," Rey says, dazed.    


“Don’t mind Testor,” the human man says, leaning over to speak to her. “She’s a bit forward but… well. You learn to take your chances in this line of work. You never know when you’ll be blown out of the sky.”

Rey nods slowly, watching Jessika’s retreating back. Her offer was intriguing but she knows there’s another opportunity she needs to seize and Leia is waiting on an answer.

::

The next morning Jess looks out for Rey at breakfast, fiercely defending the empty seat opposite her to the amusement of her fellow pilots, but she doesn’t appear. Poe, looking tired around the eyes but perceptive as ever, pats her on the back and takes the chair.

“The _Millennium Falcon_ left yesterday,” he remarks, stirring a disgusting amount of sugar into his caf. Apparently the gossip mill had reached medbay.

“Oh,” Jessika says, aiming for casual. “I guess she went. Do you know when she might be back?”

He just shrugs and Jessika slumps. Temmin puts an arm around her shoulders and sighs deeply.

“Cheer up Jess, there’s other fish in the sea. Quite literally. I hear there’s a Mon Calamari down in maintenance you haven’t struck out with yet." 

She pulls away from him and punches his shoulder but he still laughs. After a moment she joins in: she shouldn’t let herself get gloomy over a  _ what if _ .


	2. Chapter 2

The sun slides lazily through the sky overhead as Rey suns herself on the black rocks at the water's edge. Chewie is fiddling with something on the  _ Falcon _ and Luke is checking on his crustacean traps and for the first time in her life Rey has nothing to do. It feels strange.   


Compared with her life as a scavenger being a Jedi apprentice is seriously laid back: she meditates and she floats a few pebbles about but most of the day is her own. She has no idea what to do with it. 

She had expected a little more in the way of lightsaber instruction; so far Luke's only drilled her with a remote he found mouldering in one of the  _ Falcon _ 's lockers, making her deflect the bolts with her eyes blindfolded. It’s strange, letting her body move to block them without thought or sense, but she’s growing accustomed to the strangely weightless weapon he insisted she keep and she’s sure she could do more.

Luke is finishing his rounds, putting tonight's lobsters in a bucket and heading up the path to his bothy. She hesitates then jumps up, jogging to catch up with him.

“Luke,” she says, falling into step beside him. “I’ve been practicing with the lightsaber and I think I’m ready to do it for real. Against a real person.”

He doesn’t slow his pace and she waits breathlessly for his response but he just goes into the tiny shelter and puts the bucket in its place by the fireplace, bustling around in his normal routine. 

“Do you think I am?” she asks, hovering in the door.

Luke finally straightens up, pulling out a dully gleaming lightsaber of his own from a dusty nook. “Come on, we’ll go down to the beach, there’s more space.”

She tries to contain her excitement, bouncing on her feet as she squares up against Luke, who has folded up his long grey cloak and is standing perfectly still.   


She unclips the saber hilt from her belt and ignites the blade, turning the dial down so that if she manages to land a blow it will barely sting. She waits for Luke to take his own out but he just stands, his hands folded in front of him and a knowing little smile on his mouth.   


Chewbacca has abandoned his work and has settled on the canopy of the ship to watch. He roars with encouragement.   


"Come on then," Luke says, nodding to her.   


She frowns and adjusts her grip on the hilt. He can't seriously mean for her to attack him unarmed?   


He twitches, his hand just flitting towards his belt, and she instantly jumps into motion.   


To her surprise, though, instead of taking out a saber to block her thrust he instantly folds his hands back together. She's moving too fast to alter her course and she worries for a moment that she'll hit him - a low energy strike is still an unpleasant encounter – but he neatly sidesteps her attack, leaving her to reel around with the unchecked momentum of her move.   


She quickly rearranges her feet beneath her and moves her saber back into a guard. Clearly this is some kind of test.   


She strikes forward again with a hard overhead blow but Luke just moves out of the way again. Again, she recollects herself and tries a different approach, feinting to the right before spinning the hilt in her grip and twirling it down left, overhand.   


Luke twitches a finger and Rey feels the shale beneath her feet shift, pitching her off balance and sending the tip of her saber arcing through empty air.   


She jogs backwards, studying the old Jedi master. The bastard doesn't even seem to be sweating.    


When she had fought Kylo Ren she had been terrified and barely able to land a blow against his furious slashing but this... this is entirely different.   


She grinds her feet down into the rocks and takes a deep breath, centering herself and clearing her thoughts of the doubts niggling at her. She can do this – she has a lightsaber and he doesn't. All she has to do is graze his shoulder or his leg, prove that she can strike a blow.   


Luke is still studying her carefully, his body relaxed but his eyes betray absolute concentration. She stares back, desperately trying to think of a way around his defences.   


As the thought comes to her she fights to keep her face disciplined and not smirk. She feints again, moving forward with the saber swept to her offhand side, but she focuses her thoughts on the canopy of the _Falcon_ , giving a little nudge to the toolbox sitting beside Chewie.   


She steps into Luke's guard as it crashes onto the beach. Chewie yelps in surprise; Luke hesitates for the tiniest moment and she brings her saber down, aiming for his shoulder, triumph singing in her veins.   


Luke's eyes widen and quicker than she can see he pulls out his own lightsaber, igniting it just in time to intercept hers, both the blades kissing distance from the material of his tunic.   


He smiles and steps back, deactivating his lightsaber as Rey does her own.   


"Well done," he says and he sounds genuine but she feels frustration bite at her.    


Luke is barely flushed but Rey has to wipe her palms on her trousers and the cold air stings her lungs as she breathes hard. She feels suddenly how very far away she is from being a Jedi.   


Chewbacca shouts at her to help him tidy the tools but Luke looks at her sympathetically.    


"That was very well done, Rey," he says. "I wanted you to think creatively, which you certainly did."   


"Thanks," she says, not really wanting to meet his eyes. "I should really help Chewie."   


"Of course," he replies and lets her go.   


::   


Once she's reorganised the tools and helped finish the stabiliser rewiring she lists about on the beach, throwing rocks into the sea to see how far she can make them go. With a gentle Force push they arc far, far out.   


It's been weeks. Weeks of meditating and saber practice and floating rocks and she still feels the same she’s always been: just a scavenger.   


Luke puts a hand on her shoulder. "There's somewhere I think we should go," he says.   


He doesn't elaborate as he instructs her to pack the primitive little speeder, a day's worth of stores and fuel weighing them down enough to kiss the water as Luke steers them north up the chain of islands, Chewie and the  _ Falcon _ receding behind them.   


They cut across the water, skimming the tops of the waves and splashing the cockpit. Rey glances over to him but the Jedi master seems unconcerned with the salt water spattering his robes and she tries to affect the same calm, gripping onto the rim of the cockpit to steady herself against the jolts made by the waves.

"Where are we going?" she asks, shouting to be heard above the shrill engine. This thing must be ancient.   


"Another island," Luke replies unhelpfully. "There's something I think you should see."   


Rey slumps back in her seat and abandons her line of questioning. She lets a hand dip out over the side and skims it just on the surface of the water, marvelling at the feel of it. Living in a world of water has been so strange and she's been itching to ask Chewie to teach her to swim the way he does, confident and powerful, but it's never felt like the right time what with all the training and Jedi wisdom she's trying to soak up.    


She nearly laughs picturing herself shaking off like the wookie.    


::   


With the watery sun just dipping below the horizon an island looms up, larger than the one they call home and somehow more forbidding. The dying light throws the craggy cliffs into sharp contrast and shows little of the rough, scrubby terrain. Luke slows the engine and brings them round to the other side where the shore is shallower and more forgiving for the ancient speeder to climb. In the shadow of the island Rey jumps out and stretches her stiff muscles gratefully. 

Luke barely seems bothered as he plugs the speeder into the charge pack they brought and begins unloading their things.    


"So is this another Jedi place?" Rey asks, helping with the bags.   


Luke hesitates. "Of a kind. The Jedi who lived here had a very particular practice." He takes a powerful box lamp from a bag and slides a red filter over the bulb. "Follow me."   


Luke takes a path up the shale beach diagonally against the sharp slope of the hill. Rey can barely take her eyes off the path illuminated by the lamp and keep her footing but Luke walks as if he's been here hundreds of times.   


He probably has. In the weeks Rey has been his student – since she convinced him, citing Leia's threats to come make him if he refused – he told her a hundred facts about the people who lived here and formed what became the Jedi practice long before they wielded lightsabers and were infamous in the galaxy. Then, he said, they had wielded the Force itself.   


They turn sharply, through a door in the hard rock of the cliffs and into a tunnel. The walls glisten with damp and Rey can start to see her breath pluming in front of her, the temperature falling as they travel deeper.

"The Jedi who lived here believed that the path to enlightenment was to give up all attachments," Luke says, not slowing his pace as the path narrows and the ceiling lowers. "They took a vow to give up all attachments, to sustain themselves on the Force alone."   


He stops as the corridor opens out again into a series of niches, barely large enough for a grown man to tuck themselves into. Rey drifts towards them, feeling her hands reach out to touch the damp stone without her permission. On the sides of the openings are heavy metal hinges, the doors they held long since rotted away.   


"They spent a thousand rotations eating nothing but the simplest food and water, barely enough to sustain life," Luke explains, hanging back and observing as Rey explores. "They spent the next thousand rotations drinking only tea made from a lichen that grows on these rocks."   


Beside the door opening is a curious contraption, a knot of rust and gnarled metal, and Rey wedges herself into one of the gaps to see what's on the other side. She barely fits, her head brushing the ceiling even as she crouches down and her knees knocking painfully against the sides. There's a lever, connected to the metal and she reaches out to touch it but feels a sudden surge of emotion, pain and hunger and dizziness filling her senses.   


"They spent the last thousand rotations in these cells, eating and drinking nothing. After they died they were sealed in for another thousand rotations after which their bodies were perfectly preserved."   


Rey breathes hard, the cold and the foreign emotions pressing in on her. She wants desperately to be out of here; the damp, stale air suddenly chokes her.   


Luke sets down the lamp and puts a warm hand on her back. "Breathe, Rey. Let your emotions pass through you."   


"I felt them!" she protests, even as her breathing slows and some of Luke's calm seeps into her. She screws her eyes closed and tries to concentrate on him, the preternaturally bright spot of light that he is.   


"You have a powerful ability to connect with objects," he says, "but what you felt was only an echo. They can't touch you here. Come, let's go outside."   


She follows him weakly until they come within sight of the entrance and then she can hardly help herself, she rushes past him out into the clear night air and breathes it in. Luke just watches as she collapses onto the scrubby grass.   


"Why did you take me there?" she asks, looking up at his inscrutable face.   


He smiles a little behind his beard. "Come on, it's late. We should make camp."   


She watches as he picks his way slowly down the slope, the red lantern bobbing into the distance. She flops back on the ground and thumps her feet against it. Bloody Jedi and their bloody tests.   


::   


She wraps her arms around herself, staring into the fire they have crackling beside their camp. The wind off the sea is cold but huddled in their blankets she feels safe, grateful to be out of the caves.   


"How did you find this place?" she asks.   


Luke bites down on the roast fish he's eating. "I was exploring this whole area. I found the cave by accident during a storm."   


Rey shivers, imagining being trapped in there. It wasn't that it felt Dark, not at all in fact, but it felt deeply, deeply wrong.   


Luke nods. "Exactly. I pieced together what it all meant thanks to some very old records on the island where they displayed the mummies."   


"They displayed them?" Rey asks, her stomach turning.   


"At the time it was considered a worthy deed. Perhaps they discovered something we don't know about the Force..." He shakes his head. "It didn't sit well with me though."   


"So are you trying to teach me that the Jedi weren't that great?" she asks, her forehead crumpling as she thinks it through. "Or... I dunno, advising me to make sure I eat enough?"   


Luke just smiles. "You should meditate. Think about it." He sucks the last fish juice off his fingers and lies down on his sleeping mat. "Good night Rey."   


"Yeah, good night," she replies, not feeling too warm towards her teacher. She piles another piece of driftwood onto the fire and watches as it catches, the smooth pale wood blushing over with charcoal.   


She breathes and focuses on the sensation, trying to let her mind slip sideways into that strange blend of concentration and relaxation. The wind whips at her, blowing her hair into her face but she pushes the feeling back, letting the Force fill her senses. She lets the hypnotic crackle of the fire lull her, relax her –   


Fire... an engine. A ship, its sleek lines marked with an ugly oil leak just catching into bright orange, and another, an X-Wing, both buffeted by a storm over a sickly grey planet. The instruments spin wildly and the sensors are showing nothing more than static.   


A man shouts. Finn! She tries to reach for him but he looks right through her, yelling for the other man, Poe, who is desperately trying to keep the ship level. The cabin is filling with heavy black smoke, the port engine burning up.   


The altimeter plummets and she feels the blood in her veins rush strangely, the ship's environment controls unable to keep up with the sudden pressure change.   


Poe flips the emergency beacon signal but there's no response. He tries again, but nothing. 

He reaches for Finn's arm, says something that Rey can't hear. Even with all the commotion and chaos it's oppressively silent. Together they pull the ejection lever, appearing to shoot out  through the top but really it's just that she and the ship are plummeting towards the ground.

She looks out the viewport and sees it rushing towards her, the smoke from the engine choking the air, feels the impact as metal crunches against ground and –   


She jolts back to her senses, the fire burnt down to cinders, but she knows it was real with a gut deep certainty she doesn’t question.   


Luke groans as she shakes him awake but quickly comes to full awareness when he sees Rey's expression.   


"I need to go," she says urgently. "Finn and Poe, they're in trouble. I saw them."   


"You had a vision?" Luke asks, rubbing his eyes.   


She nods. "They need my help, we need to get the _Falcon_ and go help them."   


He sighs. "I suppose it would be futile to tell you not to abandon your studies?"   


"Of course I bloody well have to help them," she argues. "They couldn't even send a distress signal before – "   


"Ok," Luke agrees. "But let's do this sensibly. It's too dark to navigate safely so we wait until dawn."   


"Alright," Rey agrees impatiently. She can already feel the sun creeping towards the horizon, it won't be much longer until morning. "And then we can go?"   


"Think about this, Rey," Luke admonishes her. "Do you know their coordinates? The planet, the system? You need to go for backup first."   


She sighs. "We need the Resistance."   


Luke nods. "And I'll go with you. It's been some time and I don't think Leia will forgive me if you go back untrained and alone."   


She must still look miserable in the dim light of the fire because he reaches out and squeezes her arm. "Don't worry, visions can be deceptive. This might not even have happened yet. You have plenty of time."   


As the fire finally dies it lets out a final wisp of grey. For all it smells like driftwood and heather Rey can't seem to rid herself of the stench of oil smoke.   


::   


The journey is awful. The  _ Falcon _ is functioning limpingly and it's cramped, the three of them occupying two berths and their supplies patchy at best. Rey does everything she can to speed their passage, plotting a complex route which trims precious time off their journey. At least Luke is content to occupy the passenger position in the cockpit, letting Rey and Chewie handle the controls as they drop out of light speed a safe distance from D’Qar's rings.   


He leans forward as they make their approach and Rey looks away from the sublight engine sensors, sparing him a glance. He looks... scared.   


The door of the _Falcon_ lowers to reveal, waiting for them on the hangar deck, Leia. Luke hesitates on the ramp but when his eyes meet his sister’s she can practically feel the Force humming in the air between them. Rey struggles to hold herself back beside Chewbacca as she watches their reunion, desperate to ask about Finn, but it's too important a moment to interrupt.   


Luke gives Leia a pained look, hovering a few feet from her. He looks younger and more out of his depth than Rey could have imagined but she doesn’t blame him, pinned by the general’s stare. Leia opens her mouth, her face twisting angrily, but Luke speaks first.   


"I'm sorry about Han," he says. "I'm so sorry."   


Leia's face falls, the grief she kept well concealed showing. "Oh Luke," she says, her body relaxing and pulling him into a hug.   


Rey watches, glad she won't be a witness to a fight, but twitches impatiently. Leia gives her a perceptive glance and turns back to Luke.   


"You didn't come back to see me, though, did you?" she asks.   


“Finn, is he ok?” Rey bursts out.

“She had a vision," Luke explains.   


"We just heard word this morning..." Leia trails off, looking at Rey curiously. "You can't have come all that way so quickly."   


Rey shakes her head. "I had the vision days ago. Maybe even before – "   


Leia sighs. “I know why you’re here, but I’m afraid a rescue is impossible.”

“How do you know that?” Rey insists.

“One of them made it back. You should talk to her.”   


::   


Jessika bangs her head against the steel gurney and rattles the instruments beside her.    


"Watch it," the doctor says, jabbing her not-so-gently with a needle. "I'm not sure you can afford to lose the brain cells."   


She groans with frustration, the pain from the electrical burns up her arms melting into the gross numbing feeling of the painkillers and leaving her frayed around the edges.   


Her arms are a mess, the surge caused by whatever whacko signal the planet was putting out fritzing her entire dash. It had been a choice, though, between keeping a grip on her burning controls or losing the ship entirely.    


The medbay doors bang open and she starts up suddenly, regretting the motion when her head swims sickly. She blinks the stars out of her eyes and tries to focus on the figure speaking to the nurse at reception. Her brain must be really fried because she could swear it was Rey, the Jedi girl who left weeks and weeks ago.    


The nurse points towards Jess's bed and Rey looks at her, their eyes meeting. She frowns, trying to rally her brain to focus. Did Rey really come back to see her? That would be ridiculous but...   


"Jessika, right?" Rey asks, rushing towards her.   


Jess smiles, ignoring the irritated glance the doctor gives her visitor. It's probably just the meds but she could swear the other girl is glowing, her skin practically shining with light.    


"Rey of sunshine," she breathes, then giggles, then winces. Rey frowns at her a little and she waves a hand. "I'm on like a hundred painkillers," she explains.   


"Leia said that you were on the mission with Finn, where he went down?" Rey asks.   


"Yeah, him and Poe. We were doing recon in this system, right out in outer outer rim, practically uncharted. We were going in to see this moon that looked promising for a new base when bang, all our systems went haywire." She holds up her pink, burned arm. "That's how I got this, but Poe and Finn's ship crashed. I didn't see if they ejected but – "   


"They did," Rey interrupts, her words certain. "I saw it."   


It might have been the other girl's tone, or the expression of fierce determination on her face, but Jessika doesn't doubt her for a second.   


"Ok," she says, letting herself breathe at last; she had hoped the others had survived but the uncertainty had been eating at her. “Good.”

“We have to go rescue them, they don’t have a ship,” Rey says. “Can land there?”

Jessika considers; she had been thinking about the same thing, rolling the problem over in her mind, but it was all just conjecture at this point. When she’d been debriefed the general had seemed dubious, it was foolish to throw more good pilots into a death trap. She looks up at Rey, her eyes desperate, and decides. “I can do it,” she says.   


Rey nods but the doctor turns around from scribbling on a chart and points the pen at her. "You're not going anywhere, lieutenant, you haven't been discharged."   


She pulls the monitoring cables off her chest, holding back the wince from clenching her still sore hand and gets up, putting one hand on Rey's shoulder to steady herself as the painkillers make her head swim. "I'm discharging myself then."   


Rey lets herself be used as a walking aid but she does whisper in Jessika's ear as they exit. "Are you sure you're good to fly?"   


She smirks back. "I'm always good to fly, don't worry."   


::   


The hangar bustles with more than its usual amount of chaos with black leader missing. Jessika, with Rey  just a step behind by her shoulder, strides towards the harassed looking deck chief. He looks up from his holopad and gives Jess a frown.   


"Shouldn't you be in med bay?" he asks.   


"I'm a fast healer," she lies smoothly. "We're here to get a personnel transport prepped for take off, fueled and supplied with – "   


"No ships are to leave the planet," the chief recites in a bored tone, returning to his holopad. "We're running with half our pre-Starkiller fleet and, in case you haven't noticed, resupplies aren't plentiful."   


"Listen, chief," Jessika says, leaning in close as if imparting a great secret. "This is on the general's specific orders. We have a very important rescue mission."   


He doesn't seem impressed. "Funny, because the general just gave me specific orders not to let any hot shots and their civilian friends do anything reckless. We just don't have the ships."   


Rey shoots him a venomous look. "Fine, we'll get a different ship."   


He jabs a spanner at Jessika. "She won't be going anywhere either. We've also got a bit of a pilot shortage, and we need everyone we've got to be here on standby. Your romantic pleasure cruise will have to wait, Testor."   


Jess fumes, her hands bunching by her sides but Rey pulls her away.   


She marches Jess back out of the hangar, dodging them between the crews repairing their admitted depleted and diminished set of ships.    


"We have to go," Jess hisses and Rey squeezes her arm where she's holding it. "On a hostile planet, maybe swarming with life forms, they don't have time to spare."   


"Don't worry, we're going alright. Should we talk to Leia? Straighten this out?”

Jessika shakes her head. Rey certainly seems to have the general’s ear but she had shut down Jess’s pleas to organise a rescue when she had arrived; it was apparently too dangerous without more intel.

“Sometimes it’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission,” she says, running over their options. Stealing a resistance ship was possible, but seditious, and there aren’t many civilian ships capable of the distance, at least at any speed. “That ship you came in on, can you pilot it?”

Rey almost looks offended. “Of course I can.”   


"Good,” Jess grins, feeling more and more certain that her instincts have been right about the Jedi girl. “Let’s go then.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The mummification Luke described is a (slightly butchered) version of a real historical practice: [sokushinbutsu](http://www.damninteresting.com/sokushinbutsu-the-ancient-buddhist-mummies-of-japan). 
> 
> More chapters to come as I write them, I might have chapter 3 up in a week or so.


	3. Chapter 3

The _Millennium Falcon_ is a legend. That's a fact. Jessika has heard the stories, studied the flight records in officer training and dreamed of pulling off the manoeuvres it and its equally legendary crew has achieved.

She was seriously unprepared for what a hunk of junk she would be.

Rey is jury-rigging a piece of wiring in the cockpit, standing balanced on the co-pilot's seat, and she can see in the panel that it's shortcut on shortcut in there, maybe fifty years worth of unplanned and ill-considered mods. She shudders to think what the engine looks like - probably crammed with parts from other models welded in and ready to crack at any moment.

"You ready?" Rey asks, pushing back her goggles and clambering down to the floor.

"As I'll ever be," Jess says, stowing her bag of supplies in one of the lockers behind the controls.

Rey looks at her shrewdly. "You're not still spaced out on meds are you? How are your hands?" She reaches out and grabs Jessika's hand, running her fingers over the tender pink skin. "This must have hurt," she murmurs.

Jessika shrugs, feeling her face heat up. "I can still fly."

Rey hums and studies Jessika's hands, as if unconvinced. She pulls them back gently and Rey looks up, her face freezing as she realises how they had been standing.

"Well," she says, "I hope you don't mind taking the co-pilot seat for now. The Falcon is tricky to fly if you're not used to her."

"Wherever you want me captain," Jess says with a wink, enjoying the way Rey startles and avoids her eyes.

They settle into their respective positions and while she acquaints herself with the archaic controls she peeks over to where Rey is running the pre-flight checks. She seems confident, checking the emergency systems and running a diagnostic on the life support with her hands moving like a practiced pilot . Jessika preps the hyperspace computer, inputting the moon's co-ordinates and calculating the jump.

"Do you want to radio this in?" she asks, picking up the transmitter.

Rey hesitates. "It would be normal protocol, wouldn't it?"

Jess shrugs. "This isn't exactly a normal take off. They will notice us, though."

"Leave it," the other girl says. "Luke will know where we're going."

She flicks a sequence of switches and Jess can feel the ancient engines hum into life.

“What’s he like?” she asks, barely able to help herself as they both strap in. “Is he as powerful as everyone says?”

“He’s a skilled warrior,” Rey says, keeping her eyes focussed on the controls as she primes the engines to take off.

Jess sighs. To think that _Luke Skywalker_ was on D’Qar and she didn’t even get to meet him. “It must be amazing being his student.”

 

“It’s alright,” Rey answers, lifting them up gently, balancing the thrusters so the ship remains parallel to the ground.

One of the ground crew runs up to them, waving his little batons frantically as the engines do their best to blow him over. She feels a twinge of regret at how royally this is going to fuck up his day but there’s no question of leaving Poe to die on some desolate moon somewhere.

The comm buzzes and Jess rejects the transmission. There's really no point listening: unless the resistance wants to send fighters after them this will be easy.

Rey steers them steadily above the base and into the upper atmosphere, the engines rattling as they battle against gravity until finally space opens up before them and the light comes on to indicate they're safe for hyperspace. Rey eases up on the sublights and as they die Jessika punches the hyperdrive, feeling space warp around them as they make the jump. The stars streak through the viewport of the cockpit before settling into the comforting blue swirl of hyperspace.

All in all, that was as smooth as an illegal take off could be.

Jessika watches Rey as she unbuckles from the chair and stands to stretch. She's much the same as Jessika remembers her: tall, lithe, and graceful. Her skin has lost some of the warm glow she'd had before - evidently wherever Jedi go to train isn't a sunbathing resort - but it only makes the scattering of freckles around her eyes stand out more. She feels her eyes drawn to the heavy metal hilt at Rey's belt, wondering whether it's polite to ask a Jedi to see their lightsaber or whether it had... connotations.

"There's a couple berths if you want to sleep," Rey says, rummaging in an overhead locker and pulling out what looks like a modified old starfighter helmet. "And a galley, if you’re hungry."

"What's that?" Jessika asks, swivelling round in her chair and pointing at the remote she's activating.

Rey smiles bashfully. "I'm meant to be practicing," she explains, waggling she hilt of her lightsaber.

"Can I watch?" Jessika asks.

Rey frowns, hesitating. "I don't know..."

"I won't bother you, I've just always wanted to see a real Jedi – " she explains but Rey interrupts her.

"Well I'm no Jedi," she says, turning her back on Jessika, "and I'm not some zoo exhibition either."

Jessika feels like she’s stumbled into an argument she missed the beginning of. “I was just curious.” Rey doesn’t respond and continues fiddling with the remote. It’s getting obvious this is her cue to leave. “I’ll go rest, call me if you need anything.”

Rey nods without turning to look at her.

::

Leia feels the ship leave moments before a breathless attaché runs into her office to give her the news.

"Should we pursue, general?" he asks.

"Negative," she waves him away. "Let them go."

Luke's eyes twinkle at her in an irritatingly familiar way. It's even worse now he has a beard.

"You knew she would go," he says.

"So did you," she points out. "I couldn't divert more resources into such a dangerous mission, it would look like favouritism."

"But you could point Rey in right direction and let her go?"

"She'll be fine."

"I'm sure," Luke agrees. "You could have told her though."

Leia snorts. Her brother was always naive about command; Leia understands the value of an ignorant hero.

::

Rey stretches out her neck, her muscles sore and bunched from repeated blasts from the remote. The grace and fluidity Luke possessed so effortlessly was proving to be more challenging than the strength and speed she'd acquired as a scavenger. It feels like the more she opens up to the Force the more the lightsaber feels dead and dull in her hands, heavy with a weight of history that hinders her using it. A little petulantly, she wishes she still had her dependable old quarterstaff.

She's bent over the console table, reading the sparse notes the resistance had on KH74A, the mystery moon. They didn't know much: it was small, iron cored and rocky with a breathable atmosphere and a tolerable temperature range. It's orbit around the gas giant HK74 was favourable, allowing it sunlight most of the year, though one analyst speculated that the tidal forces exerted would make any coastal areas uninhabitable. It was strategically situated near one of the few well mapped hyperspace lanes branching into the unknown regions.

Finn, Poe, and Jessika were supposed to gauge whether it was inhabited and if so, whether those inhabitants were likely to be receptive to the resistance putting down roots there. Unfortunately, the signal which disrupted their instruments also stopped them from gaining any intel on the planet, even to determine whether that signal was naturally occurring or engineered.

She flips through to the single page file about her co-pilot. Her record certainly seems to bear up her boasting with a long list of missions and accolades: Poe wrote a glowing recommendation for her promotion to lieutenant and she won a medal for valour for her actions over the Starkiller base. It was strange to think that she had been there, in a way, when Rey had fought Kylo Ren on that snowy planet.

She snaps the file shut when Jessika steps into the communal area, her hands looking thankfully less tender than they had before. She remembers the feel of shiny new skin from when she had held them before.

"Are you all done?" Jessika asks, hesitating in the corridor.

"I didn't practice for long," Rey says. "Did you get some rest?"

"I don't sleep well in space," Jessika replies, taking the seat opposite her. She still holds herself cautiously and Rey is a little glad – she'd rather not field a hundred questions about being a Jedi. "Never have."

"Isn't that a little strange for a pilot?"

Jessika grins. "Probably. I didn't start out flying spacecraft, though. You're looking at Dandoran's swoop race champion three years in a row."

"Don't you have to be crazy to fly those?" Rey has seen a few swoop races when the inhabitants of Niima Outpost had a few days off and few too few distractions. Those races were dangerous.

"Pretty much, yeah," Jessika agrees. "It paid well, though."

"So what happened?"

The other girl fiddles with her fingers, running her fingertips together. "The Resistance, really. Or Poe, more specifically."

"He recruited you?"

She grimaces. "He saved my life. Then he said I had a knack for flying and why didn't I join the resistance?"

"As simple as that?" Rey asks, trying to picture the younger Jessika giving up a career she obviously loved, leaving everything behind to join a war.

"I never regretted it," she says, "but I still don't love hyperspace travel."

"I don't like the cold," Rey admits. "No matter how many layers I put on I still can’t get warm."

"Was your home planet hot?"

"Something like that," she says, not sure she wants to think of Jakku as home. It always felt more like a stopping place and now it's fading into her past like the home she doesn't remember. "Warmer than space."

"Some of the other pilots are like that," Jessika says. "They say you should close your eyes and imagine you're lying in the warm sun."

"And that works?"

"I don't think so," she laughs, "but it can't hurt to try."

"Well we should enjoy it while it lasts, I'm not looking forward to trying to land on this moon. What's your plan?" Rey asks.

"I have an idea, but I don't think you'll like it," Jessika says with a grimace.

::

The _Falcon_ jolts out of hyperspace just in time to see the moon appearing beneath the viewport, its atmosphere clouded over with grey. Rey checks all the sensors, praying the safeguards she and Jessika had installed would be enough for their unorthodox landing.

"It's going to be damn near impossible to steer once we hit the atmosphere," the pilot says, her hands firm on the controls and her eyes fixed in front of her. "I'll bring us down as near where me and Poe were as possible."

"Got it," Rey replies, the moon looming ever closer as Jessika steers them towards it. She doesn't bother voicing the sense of dread it gives her. They both know what they're getting into.

She brings up the forward shield as they break the atmosphere, the clear blackness of space giving way to choking clouds. The comm begins to hiss and Jessika looks at it sharply.

"That's how it started. We only have a moment before – "

Before she can finish speaking the instruments all go haywire. Three different alarms sound and sparks flash on the console; their navigation computer shorts out.

"Are you doing it yet?" Rey asks, fighting to keep hold of the controls and keep the Falcon in a slow descent.

"Not yet," Jessika says, concentrating hard on the occluded view in front of them.

Another alarm goes off; the altimeter has shut itself down. Rey grits her teeth; for all she knows they're about to plough into a mountain.

"Now?" she asks, panic building as the console begins to overload, sparks flying and instruments overflowing with electrical charge.

"Now!" Jessika says and Rey instantly flips the switch to the engines, killing their power.

They float, calm for a moment without the flashing lights or the shrill alarms.

Quickly, however, the _Falcon_ tips in the air, her broad underside coming up against the atmosphere without the engines there to keep her aerodynamic. The friction of air particles meeting metal as their incredible mass gains momentum roars, the gasses burning up in the heat. Without the shields the durasteel plating will only last so long under such treatment.

Rey glances aside at Jessika, doubt about her own sanity in carrying out this plan stabbing her. The other pilot is completely focused though, her hands steady on the controls of the one thing they still have working – the manual flaps which usually support the stabilising thrusters in keeping the ship trim.

The clouds rush past them faster and faster as they gain speed, the grey fog growing denser as they dive deeper into the planet's atmosphere. Rey stretches out her senses, desperately trying to feel the ground coming up towards them but can only vaguely feel that it's coming, and soon. She can feel the way the Force moves around this moon, though, and she's certain it's inhabited. It seems focused, channeled in the way only sentient life can be, and it has a chillingly familiar feel to it – not Dark, but cold. Cold and hard.

Abruptly they break the cloud cover and the whole surface opens up beneath them, huge swathes of grassland as unchangingly grey as the sky but punctuated by abrupt eruptions of flat topped mountains.

It's coming up to meet them very fast and the G-force is pushing them both back hard into their seats and Rey's teeth are gritted against the feeling she's about to be torn to shreds. Little pale pinpricks of animals are becoming visible, swarming in the grasses below, scattering out of the way as the _Falcon_ plummets towards them.

"There!" Rey says, spotting an unnatural dark shape on the plateau. "We're going to come down near the X-Wing."

"Brace yourself first," Jessika shouts just moments before they hit the ground, ploughing a gouge into the earth until the _Falcon_ comes to rest, her beams creaking but holding together. "Are you ok?"

Rey nods, her breath shaky.

Jessika's hands look little better as she takes out the radio and flips through the frequencies. "It's full of interference, but I think I'm getting something. Maybe binary?"

"Let me hear," she says, scrambling forward. The signal is weak but she's sure she recognises that tone.

"You speak binary?" Jessika asks but Rey doesn't bother answering her.

"We need to follow the direction that's coming from. Can you do that?"

Jessika nods and she grins. They're on the trail.

::

The sight of the smouldering X-Wing sinks Jessika's heart: the port engine is obviously blown to hells and the crash tore and mangled all four wings, the plasteel canopy shattered like crystal. At least both the seats have ejected. She sets down her pack gratefully and takes a moment to breathe, tired from beating her way through the thick, sharp grass. She hopes fervently that they don't end up using this moon as a base; she's already sick of it, and she can't help the feeling that they're being watched.

A laboured beeping is coming from within the wreckage and Rey quickens her pace towards it. She hardly seems phased by their walk.

"We're here, BB-8," she shouts, clearly understanding the droid's warblings.

Xir wedged in the centre of the pile of scrap, blocked from escaping by the splayed port upper wing. Xe beeps frantically as Rey carefully pries apart the metal structure holding xem captive. Jessika hangs back and scans the horizon, the back of her neck prickling.

"Yeah I see," Rey says, conversing with the astromech. "The ejector jammed, I know it wasn't on purpose. Do you know where they are now?" 

BB-8 whistles shrilly, xir head dome spinning erratically as Rey carries xem bodily down to the ground.

"Any clue?" Jessika asks.

"They ejected, BB saw that for sure. It doesn't give us much clue where they landed, though."

"Can you, like, sense them?" Jessika asks.

"I don't – " Rey starts, looking irritated, but she takes a deep breath. "I haven't learned that yet."

"Ok," she says, hoping she doesn't sound disappointed. "Maybe the onboard computer's still intact, if we know where they were when they ejected – "

"We can calculate where they landed," Rey finishes for her. "That's a good idea."

So they set to work stripping away the debris to find the computer, eventually hooking it up to BB's power core when they find it. Rey obviously knows her way around ships, dismantling the parts with easy assurance.

Jessika still can't shake the feeling they're being watched and she hopes and prays it's just paranoia right up until the moment they're ambushed.

The attack comes swiftly and suddenly. They both look up at the sound of distant engines, then look to each other. She doesn't hesitate to grab the computer as Rey goes for their packs but before they can even make for the long grass the group is upon them: four cloaked figures on speeders, pointing their blasters at them. BB-8 tries to back behind them.

"You," one of them asks, carefully dismounting while keeping his weapon pointed firmly at Rey. "That your ship that crashed up north?"

"We landed," Rey replies. Jessika's eyes flit between their attackers: they have numbers but they're slack, definitely not professionals. Not one of them has a full set of armour and their bikes are decrepit, possibly even older than the _Falcon_.

The man ignores her tone. "There more of you on board?"

"A whole squad," Jessika answers. "Armed to the teeth and ready to come looking for us if we don't report back."

The man looks over to the smallest member of their group, a scrawny child with hungry eyes. She shakes her head and he advances on them, the muzzle of his weapon coming uncomfortably close to Rey's head. 

"You're lying," he says.

At this distance even an incompetent shooter could kill. Jessika smiles, trying to think of some clever words to defuse the tension but before she can act Rey's face has screwed up in anger and she's lashing out, knocking the weapon from the man's hand before picking it up and clubbing him over the head with it. BB-8 screams.

Jessika dives behind the meagre cover of the X-wing's damaged fuselage, her own blaster in her hands in moments. She hits one of them in the shoulder, sending them groaning to the ground but Rey isn't fast enough: as she draws her lightsaber the child aims for her hand, thankfully only stunning her. Rey falls, clutching her limp arm in her left hand.

"The next one won't just stun you," the child says, the blaster steady in her hand aimed at Rey's head. "You come out too. Slowly."

Jessika puts her hands up and steps out from behind her cover. One of the roughs quickly takes her gun and ties her wrists behind her back. The man Rey knocked over sits up clutching his head; he sees the lightsaber on the ground where Rey's senseless hand dropped it and reaches out to touch it but hesitates, his fingers hovering over it.

"Where did you get this weapon?" he asks, his tone reverent.

"It's mine," Rey bites back.

The man shares a look with the child and she takes the lightsaber, holding it clumsily in her small hands. Rey looks ready to argue but she's dragged to her feet and bound like Jessika. They're both tossed into a rusty hover sled with BB-8 and their attackers take off with them in tow without speaking another word to them.

"It's alright," Rey comforts the droid. "There's a good chance these friendly locals caught up to Finn and Poe as well and they're taking us right to them."

"And what are they going to do with us there?" Jessika asks.

Rey doesn't answer, just keeps her eyes on the child riding alongside them, the gleaming hilt of the lightsaber on her belt.


End file.
